{4.5/5} “In the enigma tale as we have known it… we have evidence that literature — that art — encodes into itself, despite all attempts at extirpation, critiques of the world in which it is created. In the enigma tale these authors tried to address — through the medium of the puzzle, the riddle — […]

{4.5/5} “Having participated in numerous first contact situations over the course of his career, he always tried to wonder what the representatives of the other party were thinking during the opening moments of such a meeting. Fear? Uncertainty? Anticipation or hope? Picard had seen all of those reactions and everything in between.” Star Trek: TNG […]

{4.5/5} “I was willing to hear this song, because I had once yearned for a world in which lives would be governed not by lineage and lust and moribund law, but by love and loyalty. In this one valley, such lives are possible… If it is a mistake to hope for such a world, then […]

{4.5/5} “And yet here the foreign devil sits, complaining about the tiny prick of a needle, but completely unconcerned that he has destroyed a ten-ton animal in the blink of an eye. The yang guizi are strange creatures indeed. More alien than he suspected, even when he traded with them regularly.” The Windup Girl by […]

{5/5} “Since proposing the mission, Emilio had been take aback by the pace of things… And if the speed of events scared him, the precision with which the pieces were falling into place was even more unnerving. He went sleepless, unable to decide which was harder to live with: the idea that he had started […]

{5/5} “She had been in that little phone box in the in the corridor in The Pines and Mark had said that if she was going to marry him it would have to be now or never. And she had been startled and confused and had stood there in the smell of chalk and disinfectant […]

{5/5} “The intricacies of a three-billion-year-old culture made up of a thousand diverse, bickering patron-client clan lines, held together loosely by a network of ancient institutes and traditions, made Fiben’s head swim… But then something would crystallize, and Gailet would make clear to him some tradition or principle that displayed uncanny subtlety and hard-won wisdom.” […]

{4.5/5} “The senior patron races see the Terrans as a threat. They are wolflings, and therefore dangerous. They preach revolutionary uplift practices… more dangerous still. They are allies of the Tymbrimi, an insult beyond forbearance. And they proselytize — an unforgivable offense.” Startide Rising by David Brin, published in 1983 The Streaker, a ship of […]

{4/5} “To my knowledge, mankind is the first case in which there exists the intriguing possibility of evolved intelligence. As I am sure you know, this idea violates several well-established principles of our biological science. Yet some of your anthropologists’ arguments possess startling self-consistency.” Sundiver by David Brin, published in 1980 It’s been reported that […]

{4.5/5} “Like many boys of my generation, I dreamed of becoming an art critic one day: the pure primal thrill of attacking a painting, the sheer visceral kick of savaging a movie or a poem. In my case, however, the dream turned into reality, for by my twenty-second year I was employed as a deconstructionist […]